


grow

by actualmuseofspace



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Healing, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Lovers to Friends, M/M, Recovery, Rescue, Slice of Life, Team Talon (Overwatch), Therapy, Watchpoint: Gibraltar, bad botany metaphors, mental health
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 13:26:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16833520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/actualmuseofspace/pseuds/actualmuseofspace
Summary: When they bring Gabe home, he keeps escaping. When he stops escaping, he stops sleeping.Jack has held Gabe down before. Held him down during SEP when they pumped them full of something that left them twitching and fighting their selves. Held him down when they would spar. Held him down when they had sex. He’s not afraid of Gabe. He’s not afraid.But Gabe is afraid, Gabe is crying and screaming and he seems so lost and alone that Jack is terrified.





	grow

When Lena says, "We think we figured out how to capture the Reaper," Jack scoffs.

"Sure, Lena. And Winston can stop you from flashing out of everything he puts you in."

"No, that's the thing - we made a new net, it snares the molecules and it can hold me, but Winston doesn't think it's limited to chronal, he thinks it might work." Lena always speaks like that. She never seemed to learn what a sentence is, and Jack is almost certain her lungs work on less oxygen than the average person.

Jack doesn't believe her, but Jack didn't become Strike Commander by being a good scientist. It doesn't surprise him that he makes it to a meeting room. Jack can't keep his eyes off the pictures of known Talon agents on the walls.

Widowmaker - Amelie.

Sombra - someone he could have saved, once.

Moira - a face he wishes he didn't have to see on a wall.

Reaper - Gabe.

He knows the others must see it, Jesse and Genji, and there's no reason he needs to be here exclusively, there's no reason he knows more about Gabe's fighting or style than any of them.

They won't say it out loud who he is. They know. They can't not know. But no one, bar Jack, seems willing to acknowledge it.

Formally, Jack is here because he has "a potential edge given Reaper's historical fascination with you." Informally, he's here because Jesse and Genji still believe Gabe is in there, somewhere, and maybe if he sees Jack, he'll come out.

Jack doesn’t know. Killing Gabe would be worse than killing himself, and so he can’t kill the Reaper unless he knows Gabe is dead. He would prefer it if Gabe were dead because then he could kill the Reaper.

Jack doesn’t know. He knows he can’t relieve them of their responsibility to Gabe, and so he knows that he can’t do the right thing and the best thing. He can't leave so the mission can succeed and convince himself it's right.

They're in the same room to plan missions, always, and Jack is ready to punch a wall. If Gabe were here, they would've already left. They would be a stealth team, and Gabe would…

Jack doesn't know what Gabe would do. Gabe would say, "Jack, I'm sorry, but I can't let this happen." Jack is sure he would understand. Gabe has to do what he has to do. Jack's not Gabe, though.

Officially, he was picked for the UN because he was charismatic. Unofficially, the reason was the same, but Jack can't let go of Gabe, who always knew what had to be done.

\--

Jack himself isn't part of the rescue team. He helped plan it, but he knew better than to let himself go on the rescue team.

Jesse protests. "The whole point of bringing you on this mission is that Reaper doesn't immediately try to kill you."

"It doesn't matter if the net works. And we haven't suffered casualties from the Reaper yet."

Jesse knows better than to keep arguing. Jack knows better than to say Gabe in front of him.

Jack may not be on the rescue mission, but he still manages to panic about it. Winston kicks him out of the command room, claiming that Jack's a distraction.

"Your pacing," he says, "is so loud that they can hear it over the comms. If you're ready to give some relevant information, you can come back."

Jack wants to scream.

He goes to the training room. Athena runs simulation after simulation for him - all strategy. He picks team groups and attack plans. She tells him his project success rate.

He says, "Now run this mission."

"We've already run this simulation many times before we started. It would not be beneficial to run it again."

"Run the damn simulation, Athena."

She does.

He does it as they planned. 78% success rate. Not all variables accounted for.

He puts himself on the team. 72% success rate. Not all variables accounted for.

He tells her, "Fill in the gaps for me."

The only response he gets is a mechanical beep.

He does it as they planned. 82% success rate. Assuming medium difficulties.

He puts himself on the team. 45% success rate. Team structure not recommended.

"Why does it keep failing so much?"

"Soldier, I don't exist to answer questions you know the answer to."

"I'm an asset."

"If you thought you were an asset, you would've gone on the team."

He stares at the numbers, knowing he cannot change them.

"I'm sorry."

"I know."

He goes back to the command room. Winston barely blinks at him. He sits down in the chair, puts on the headphones. The comms are mostly quiet.

"Alright, let's do this thing."

\--

When they bring Gabe home, they have to put him in a cell. It's the only place that's been upgraded to keep the trapping material - they haven't figured out how to let Lena through.

"Not that I would mind, really," she told Jack. "It would be nice to be able to keep the Chronometer off for a little. But if we're ever invaded, it's just not safe." Mentally, Jack notes to talk to Winston about a way to turn it on and off.

Gabe, forced into one form, is tired and weak. He doesn't say much or move much. Jack sits outside his cell, watching. He can't bring himself to do more than the basic hospitalities Overwatch has always provided its prisoners.

At first, he tries to escape. He fails, again and again and again, and when he stops escaping, he stops sleeping.

Jack has held Gabe down before. Held him down during SEP when they pumped them full of something that left them twitching and fighting their selves. Held him down when they would spar. Held him down when they had sex. He’s not afraid of Gabe. He’s not afraid. 

But Gabe is afraid, Gabe is crying and screaming and he seems so lost and alone that Jack is terrified. 

\--

On base, they don't have anyone who's actually a qualified therapist. Angela says she can try, Zenyatta offers to try. But it's painful to watch either of them interact with him. They don't know Gabe, they only know the Reaper as an enemy, and no one is quite sure how to go forward with this.

The line between Gabe and the Reaper is only as solid as Gabe's fingers, so the sessions are conducted between two cells, with a mesh panel he can't break in between them.

They get better as time goes on, forming a tag team of untangling what happened and preparing for the future. Neither of them are qualified, but slowly, Gabe stops screaming and starts talking. He says hello to Jack when Jack settles in to his watch, and Jack says hello back. There's no indication Gabe remembers anything, but they do puzzles together on a tablet Genji rigged up.

Zenyatta and Angela eventually start to enter. Jack, who has never been afraid of Gabe, leaves for the sessions. Jack brings Gabe old things of his. Sweaters, blankets. Nothing too heavily tied to who they were.

Jack and Gabe start a book club with Lena and Winston and Jesse - the old crew, they say.

Gabe gets ready to leave his cell, which isn't quite a cell.

“The problem,” Gabe explains, “is not that I am going to run away.” It was the problem, but they don’t need to say that. “It is that I’m not sure, after this long of being held together by something else, if I can do it by myself.” 

On base, when he makes it out for the first time without slipping into Reaper-black-puddle-gas, they throw a party. Someone who’s actually good at it bakes a cake, even though Gabe can't stay together long enough to eat it.

Gabe can’t stay out for long, the unfamiliar space is hard to deal with. But they make it out slowly, exploring everything he can. Zenyatta takes him outside, with an emergency net in case he falls apart, saying it’s good for the soul. Angela takes him up to the medical room she’s converted into a therapist’s office.

He eats his meals with the team.

He doesn’t talk to Jack about who they were.

It hurts, but Jack hasn’t exactly given them their dog tags. Jack hasn’t brought it up. So they keep doing puzzles.

\--

Jack's life is a simple one. He wakes up, he eats breakfast. Hana shows him videos and memes and invites him to watch her as she streams. Lucio asks him for his opinions on his new album. Lena looks at old Overwatch files with him, trying to find some of the tactics that worked in the early days.

Jesse writes the mission plans now, but he always asks Jack to look it over. Ana and Fareeha make up, and they harass Jack until he finally agrees to go shopping with them.

Jack's life is a simple one. He doesn't think too much about the details. He avoids to politics of Overwatch. When new members come, he greets them cordially and adds them to the dinner roster. He brushes up on the Spanish that's gone hazy over the years and lets himself become a common enough face in the town. He drinks his coffee black, but he doesn't mind adding sugar.

\--

Things don't go back to the way they were. Like a branch grafted back on the tree it was cut off, Gabe fits in after time, but there's still a scar. Like a branch grafted on a tree, Jack and Gabe need a lot of patience to grow together again.

Jack makes breakfast, most mornings, and he invites Gabe. Sometimes Gabe isn’t feeling up to it. Sometimes Gabe doesn’t want to. Most of the time, he tries. Zenyatta invites Jack to come to a meditation session. It’s more like a class, these days, and Jack is surprised to find that Hana comes too.

Jesse isn’t ready to talk to Gabe, and nobody makes him. Jack texts Jesse if he’s planning on visiting Gabe, so Jesse doesn’t track Jack down and find a surprise.

Sometimes Gabe comes to the training rooms. He wants nothing to do with combat, and Jack doesn’t blame him, but Gabe says it feels good to watch Jack practice. Gabe says so much has changed since the last time he watched Jack fire a pulse rifle.

Jack decides he’s not going to give Gabe the dog tags. He still loves Gabe, but he’s not sure if he loves him the same way he loved him before. A lot has changed since then. Jack doesn’t think it’s fair to either of them, to try to hold themselves to who they once were.

So Jack keeps making breakfast, and Gabe still joins more days than not. Things aren't the way they were, and Jack stops waiting.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! If you like this, I would also recommend my piece "Man of My Word." While they're not actually related, I think of this as the emotional sequel to it.  
> The next thing I plan to post is "i wanna make magic." It's my last piece for Fame, about high school and relationships and dreams. It's also mostly Nick and Serena, but with Goody in there too.  
> I don't currently have any other Overwatch fics planned, but over winter break, I might work on one of my Sombra focused pieces.  
> Finally, I edit these myself (and with the help of a grammar editor, because trust me, I can't spell "specifically"), so if you notice any errors, please (kindly) point them out so I can fix them.


End file.
